


Punchline

by gunsandbutter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Humor, M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-23
Updated: 2007-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:28:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunsandbutter/pseuds/gunsandbutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world." -- G. B. Shaw</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punchline

If he were to think about it—and rest assured that he most certainly does not—Sirius would blame the first lie entirely on a cat.

It all begins on the evening of James’s sixteenth birthday. As with all Marauder birthdays, tradition must be strictly observed; fortunately, Marauder tradition happens to involve vast amounts of illicit substances and somewhat morally questionable goings-on.

Needless to say, it is a very good evening, indeed.

Moony, ever the tediously wholesome Prefect, abandons his comrades to their hedonism shortly after one o’clock. Another hour sees Wormtail tripping arse-over-elbow on his own shadow, and Padfoot and Prongs are obliged to deposit him on his bed and leave him to sleep it off.

Not long after, having decided a survey of their kingdom is in order, the remaining Marauders stumble down to the common room, fall through the portrait-hole

 _(much to the displeasure of the Fat Lady, who is remarkably ill-tempered at three o’clock in the morning)_

and stagger off into the maze of dark hallways.

As an aside: let it never be said that James Potter and Sirius Black are careless, nor inattentive. They may appear reckless, but the truth is that they go about their lives perpetually on the qui vive for caretakers and Slytherins (the former to be avoided, of course, and the latter to be hexed mercilessly in the name of justice and harmless entertainment).

However, it is also true that occasionally, when one has engaged in a great deal of tradition, one becomes a bit too sloshed to fully appreciate certain details of one’s surroundings—the glow of suspicious eyes, for example, or the telltale padding of furtive paws.

So it is, then, that our heroes find themselves bare centimeters away from Mrs. Watson, the loathsome and culpable feline aforementioned.

James and Sirius lean hard upon each other’s shoulders, pondering the new development as they both gradually become aware of two important facts. One: Mrs. Watson will undoubtedly screech at any moment for her master to come running. Two: they have managed to forget the Cloak _again_.

For her part, the cat seems content to observe her prey. She settles on her haunches, twitching her whiskers and regarding the boys with an air of skeptical amusement.

“Bugger,” James says finally. “Isn’t that beast ever going to die?”

“Filch’s probably got a replacement lined up,” Sirius mutters, attempting to give their adversary the evil eye and simultaneously remain upright. “He’ll switch them out before she’s even gone cold, and none the wiser. Mad bastard.”

James grunts, acknowledging the point. “Run for it, then?”

But Sirius has other plans, and before he quite realizes what he is doing, the familiar shift has started in his bones. For an instant, he wonders how alcohol affects the transformation, if he might end up with three heads or lopsided legs or one enormous eyeball—and then James jerks away in surprise, and Sirius falls into a crouch, landing heavily on enormous black paws.

“You might _warn_ me next time, you old mutt.”

Ignoring James’s whingeing, Padfoot takes one challenging step forward, pleasantly surprised to find that his legs are steady. Mrs. Watson blinks slowly, feigning disinterest, but rises quickly to her feet.

“You’re a lot madder than Filch, you know,” James says at Padfoot’s back, sounding delighted. And then, reluctantly: “Don’t eat her.”

Padfoot growls, low and menacing, and the cat shrinks back with a hiss. Encouraged, he barks, lunging toward his adversary, and this time Mrs. Watson turns tail and flees, claws clicking in frantic retreat. Instinct itches in Padfoot’s legs, and he makes to follow her, but James’s fingers catch in his fur, bringing him up short.

“Padfoot!” James hisses, tugging hard at the dog’s scruff. “Come on—got to go before she brings Filch.”

James runs, and Padfoot follows him, tripping over himself as he shifts back into the somewhat ungainly form of an inebriated sixteen-year-old boy. The two of them dash down staircases and around corners; they bounce gracelessly off the occasional wall and frequently stumble over each other’s feet, but miraculously avoid any crippling collisions.

Sirius is only just beginning to wonder where the hell they are when James veers through an open doorway. Sirius ducks inside, recognizing the dim lines of an old storeroom, and James closes the door behind them.

“Wait here for a while.” James leans against the door, breathing hard. “He’ll get bored of hunting eventually, and we can run for the Tower.”

“Right.”

Their eyes meet in the darkness, and out of nowhere, they both burst out laughing.

Sirius’s body sings with alcohol and adrenaline. He is strung tight, thrumming with exhilaration; his legs are weak and trembling under his weight. Next to him, James vibrates with the effort of swallowing his loud, howling laughter. Sirius’s stomach clenches hard, sharp and quick, like a hundred-foot drop through the sky

 _(breathless plummet toward the pitch, caught up in a violent coil of wind, sudden wild rapturous terror)_

and of course it has everything to do with their near escape, the familiar joy of underhanded triumph. That much is obvious. Honestly, he hasn’t even noticed the wide curve of James’s mouth, or the soft, exposed flesh of his throat, or the strangely bitable line of his jaw—not really.

“Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,” Sirius announces, when he can find the breath. “Some of my finest work.”

“Can you imagine how many detentions you’d get for eating Filch’s cat?” James slides heavily down the wall, gasping, shifting his spectacles to wipe his eyes. “He’d have you scrubbing bedpans with your tongue for the rest of your life. We’d never see you again.”

“Ah, Prongs,” Sirius coos, giving James’s cheek a hard pinch as he collapses next to him on the floor. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“I wouldn’t, only you’d fink on me for sure.”

Sirius does his best to look offended. “I would do no such thing. Really, Prongs, I am stunned that you would say such things about your best mate, who is very nearly as loyal as he is fantastically good-looking. You wound me, _mon amour—ami. Mon ami. Je suis ivre mort. Ah, putain, vous ne parlez pas français_.”

“You’re babbling.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah. And also, ah. Right. Babbling.”

As a conclusion to that insightful declaration, Sirius lunges forward and lands a sloppy, careless kiss on James’s cheek, in what he hopes is a charmingly flippant, French sort of gesture.

James’s skin is startlingly soft, much smoother than the rough stubble he expected, and…wet. Soft and wet, and surprisingly responsive. And really: do cheeks usually taste quite so strongly of sausages and firewhiskey?

Slowly, and despite his better judgment, Sirius begins to come to the uncomfortable realization that he may have made a most egregious miscalculation. It is possible—even probable—that he has accidentally kissed James full on the mouth.

A bit forward, even for the French.

 _Merde alors._ There is no amount of manly blustering and comradely thumping that will permit Sirius to live this down. Clearly he has no choice but to attempt a Memory Charm and hope that the morning-after fuzziness will take care of the rest. It seems a shame, Obliviating a mate on his birthday, but it has to be done. Sirius will make up a good story for him—terrific explosions, fair maidens fainting dead away in their portraits, blue-haired Slytherins scrambling about chasing after their renegade pants. He might even keep the bit about the cat. The important thing is that James must not be permitted to recall even a single moment of this lunacy.

And yet—

and here Sirius’s brain falters, nonplussed

—it seems quite likely, given the available evidence, that James is kissing him back.

Hard.

Sirius can hardly believe it. Here he has made the greatest tactical error of his life, and out of all the possible responses

(thumping him, biting him, screaming like a small girl)

James has apparently chosen madness.

James is _kissing him_ , and it is raw. It is eager. It is more than a little ridiculous.

James’s fingers grip hard at the back of his neck, alternately encouraging and murderous. The clumsy angle is already beginning to send shooting pains from Sirius’s neck to the base of his spine. Their teeth knock together with pitifully inelegant enthusiasm, and the whole thing is almost too awkward and senseless and utterly inept for Sirius to bear.

It is to his profound relief that they quickly work themselves out. Faces tilt, noses bump, their mouths lock together in wet, hungry harmony, and—and _good lord_ , where did James learn to kiss like this? If he’s been practicing with Evans, there will be hell to pay.

Sirius’s body is throbbing now, demanding realignment with his mouth. A shift of limbs, a muffled proposal lost somewhere between Sirius’s brain and James’s tongue, and Sirius abruptly finds himself straddled unceremoniously across the lean muscles of James’s thighs. It’s not uncomfortable, really, and James doesn’t seem to—oh. _Oh._

No, James doesn’t seem to mind at all.

With that issue resolved, Sirius returns to the pressing matter of kissing James stupid. He pours himself into James’s mouth and hands. He bites at James’s lips and sucks on his tongue. He forgets to be at all concerned over the state of James’s lungs.

This is a very bad idea. If Moony were here, he would agree. _Sirius_ , he would say, _this is a very bad idea._ Then he would frown and look stern and scratch the back of his neck. It would be very convincing.

But Moony is back in the dormitory, snoring away in blissful ignorance, probably dreaming about argyle socks and old books, and frankly Sirius isn’t sure how helpful he would be if he were here. If you need to know about the life cycle of the double-ended newt or what years Burdock Muldoon was Chief of the Wizards’ Council, Remus Lupin is your man. As for how to react to the unexpected but entirely welcome press of one’s best mate’s erection—well, Sirius thinks he’s probably on his own, there.

It does _feel_ very good. Surely Moony would sympathize with that. Surely even Moony, with his Prefect’s badge and his monkish self-restraint, would understand the sheer pleasure to be had in the simple act of drunkenly snogging another bloke in a dark closet after curfew.

Perhaps not.

He can always blame the illicit substances. And the cat. And James, of course, for being so warm and amenable and sweet merciful _fuck_ , how is it even possible that someone who spends his days lobbing dungbombs can smell so good? Spellwork, surely. Sirius has never heard of such a spell, but James is a clever boy. Clever, talented, quick on the uptake—really, he smells _unbelievably_ good. Somewhere in the muted chaos of Sirius’s mind, Padfoot is committing the scent to permanent memory.

James’s fingers press hard against his cheek, damp and insistent, and Sirius can’t stop himself breaking the seal of their mouths to lick a wide stripe up the center of James’s palm.

James’s skin tastes of ink and sweat and treacle and only slightly of the bubotuber pus which Snivellus will discover tomorrow in Charms—not until it’s too late, with any luck—and fuck, Sirius just wants to _devour_ him. He settles for scraping his teeth against the heel of James’s hand, none too gently, and James shudders and grunts and mouths blindly along Sirius’s jaw until their lips collide.

Sirius is just barely lucid enough to recall that he will have to live with James’s smug grin every day for the rest of his life; with that in mind, he somewhat heroically summons every available shred of willpower to resist rocking their hips together. The effort is rendered useless, of course, when James thrusts unconsciously up against him, spiking fire in Sirius’s stomach and liquefying his muscles. Sirius sags against James’s body, breathless, and immediately chokes on both their tongues as James’s hand sneaks between them to press clumsily against the agonizing tightness in Sirius’s trousers.

A pained noise escapes Sirius’s throat, strangled and high-pitched. It is alarmingly comparable to a wail, and Sirius realizes with sudden certainty that if they do not get on with this immediately, he is going to _die_. There will be headlines in _The Daily Prophet_ :

BLACK HEIR DIES OF SEXUAL FRUSTRATION; PUREBLOODS REJOICE.

HOGWARTS CARETAKER BAFFLED BY STUDENT’S DEMISE.

LESTRANGE OFFERS REWARD TO COUSIN’S MURDERER.

Sirius is beginning to wonder about the potency of whatever the hell they were drinking, when—contrary to all reason and basic human decency—James pulls away. Sirius is too dazed to respond, preoccupied with headlines and certain death, and their mouths wrench apart with a wet, sucking sound.

(Here it comes.)

James pants hot and ragged against Sirius’s jaw, nose pressed hard into Sirius’s cheek, and says, “Shit.”

James says, “This isn’t—I mean—Pads, it’s not _like that_ , you know?”

It is exactly Like That, of course, but Sirius is drunk and aching and very stupid, and James’s hand is exactly where he needs it to be, and they are both trapped in that dark dizzy hour when nothing means anything and regrets can wait until the morning after.

“Of course not,” Sirius lies, privately amazed at his ability to form words, and crushes their mouths together again before James can press the point.

(Anyway, James has only just turned sixteen. He has ages to work out the truth for himself.)

  
 **  
_two_   
**

The summer before sixth year, the House of Black finally realizes that they are allowing a Gryffindor defector to share their wine. This belated insight, of course, ultimately results in Sirius’s rather spectacular exit from pureblood society. James’s parents, being the best people Sirius has ever known, immediately order him into their safekeeping.

It is the best and the worst summer of his life.

That first night, he lies awake for hours on his conjured bed, staring at the wall and aching all the way to his bones. His hands tremble with spent fury, and he tucks them under his arms, pressing them tight against his body. His heartbeat flutters against his palm, short and anxious, and he remembers that Regulus used to sleep like this, back when they were children. He would wrap his arms around himself and pull his knees to his chest, curling into himself until Sirius thought he must surely suffocate or explode.

Regulus hated thunderstorms. No one else in the house ever noticed them, not with the layers of silencing charms Orion had put on the place, but Regulus _knew_ , somehow. He was blind to the lightning and deaf to the thunder, but his peculiar sense of the storm would always send him skittering down the hallway to Sirius’s room, crawling into his older brother’s bed with loud whispers and cold feet. He kicked and sometimes mumbled in his sleep, but Sirius never sent him back to his own bed.

It was Tibby who used to find them in the morning, a pile of tangled covers and tousled black hair, and she would fuss and scold as she sneaked Regulus back to his own bedchamber. Their parents never knew

 _(“No child of mine, no fruit of my flesh—”)_

and then Tibby was dead, and Regulus stopped coming, and Sirius went off to Hogwarts and became a blood traitor.

His mother is going to kill him.

Regulus slaps him hard, hisses urgent demands into his face

 _(sudden flash of polished wood)_

and Sirius jerks awake to a heavy hand on his shoulder and a sense of falling.

“Sirius.” James’s voice is a low whisper, rough and sleep-drugged. His thigh is warm through the blankets, pressed close along the line of Sirius’s back. “Sirius, you all right?”

Sirius lies very still, feigning sleep. James will probably see through the pretense, but it’s a worthwhile effort. After all, anything has to be better than looking James in the face and admitting that no, actually he is _not_ all right, thanks for asking.

James hesitates for long minutes, maybe hours—and then, without warning, his hand leaves Sirius’s shoulder. Sirius’s stomach twists with relief and disappointment, but before either sensation has a chance to settle, the same hand has drifted up to curl over Sirius’s neck, to smooth the hair from his face.

Warm fingers press against the pulse in Sirius’s throat, trace the line of his jaw, rub tiny circles into the skin behind his ear. Sirius’s skin prickles with pleasure.

 _Blood traitors._

He shudders, suddenly, and James’s fingers still in his hair. “Sirius?”

 _We are both idiots_ , Sirius thinks, with absolute certainty. “Yeah.”

James shifts awkwardly, uncomfortable but loyal. “Ah.” He coughs—swallows—stays.

Sirius thinks he has never been more pathetically grateful for anything in his life.

The silence between them has never been so heavy—not even four months earlier, waking half-naked in James’s bed with pounding headaches and enormous bruises rising wine-dark on pale skin. That was a dodgy situation, to be sure, but this uncertain pressure is something new.

Sirius stares at the wall, trying to ignore the rush of treacherous blood roaring in his ears. James’s hand is still tangled in Sirius’s hair, and Sirius thinks of Quidditch and adrenaline and hundred-foot drops. He thinks of thunderstorms. He thinks of falling.

“Do you…need anything?” James sounds pained—torn by the crushing awkwardness of asking such a question and his own inability to swallow the words. Sirius feels sorry for him, really.

Of course, what Sirius needs, right this moment, is to pull James down into the bed—to press himself closer—to urge their bodies into an alarmingly familiar tangle of warmth and misplaced elbows. He needs to lose himself in the almost-painful grip of James’s hands and the wicked velvet heat of his mouth. He needs to run his hands along James’s back, to explore and study him—to memorize the intricate web of bones and tendons and long muscles that add up to the body of this boy who has changed him, ruined him, driven him to madness.

He needs James to teach him how to sleep, how to smile—how to walk and talk and breathe in this new world where up is down and James is the only family he has.

He needs a lot of things. One thing. Everything.

“I’m all right,” he lies, and closes his eyes against the explosive pain of James’s leaving.

  
 **  
_two and a half_   
**

The next summer, Sirius moves into his own flat. He claims that he needs his own space. His neighbors shag and scream at all hours of the night, he eats take-away every meal but Sunday brunch, and his own right hand is all the company he wants or needs.

It’s a decent life, a good life, until one Sunday James’s parents have to leave halfway through the meal. Apologies all around, kisses and firm handshakes, and James has his hand down Sirius’s trousers before the fire has even stopped flickering.

James pins Sirius’s hips to the floor and bites at his hipbones, groans low and grateful into Sirius’s skin, and Sirius just falls and falls with no ground in sight.

  
 **  
_three_   
**

They are eighteen and about to leave Hogwarts forever when James tells him that he and Evans are getting married.

Sirius’s gut instinct is to roll his eyes, knock James on his arse, and snog the idiot until he remembers that this is _it_. Whatever this is—it’s everything, it’s all there will ever be. It might not be perfect, and it might not make sense, but it’s what they have, and Sirius for one is not going to give it up without a fight.

He might break James’s nose, too, for good measure.

He might change everything.

Instead, Sirius breaks into a grin, punches James in the shoulder, and storms up to the dormitory, roaring the news to Moony and Wormtail and rummaging around in his trunk for the fullest bottle of Ogden’s.

After all, they have carried on this entire affair in a singularly idiotic fashion; Sirius sees no reason to change course now.

  
 **  
_four_   
**

The day Harry is born, as Sirius cradles the baby to his chest, James makes him swear that he will care for the child if anything happens.

The labor was a long one, nearly thirty hours, and James is a mess of emotions: exhausted, terrified, beside himself with happiness. In the bed, Lily is flushed and radiant, glowing with pride. She is the most beautiful, powerful woman Sirius has ever seen; he can’t imagine betraying the expectant trust he sees in her face.

Sirius tells them both with a straight face that he will care for Harry as if he were his own son.

The truth, of course, is that Harry will always be more than Sirius’s son.

Harry will soon grow into an unspeakably charming baby, curious and mild-tempered, and Sirius will adore him instinctively. Harry will be fat and clever and endearingly fond of his godfather, letting out a squeal of joy at the first glimpse of Sirius’s face. Sirius will not stand a chance.

But, more than that, Harry is James’s son. He has a part of his father, and Sirius knows from the first moment Harry drools on his shirt that he would gladly die for him—that he would take a thousand Killing Curses to the chest before he’d let just one breeze past Harry’s ear.

Sirius may be a lot of things—liar, Black, blood traitor—but he is not an idiot. His hand curls instinctively to fit the curve of Harry’s soft, round little head, and he knows with utter conviction that he will love this child

 _(fiercely, helplessly, with every part of himself)_

the way he can never love James.

It is their secret, his and Harry’s—their quiet lie of omission. It is hidden in the stroke of Sirius’s thumb across Harry’s cheek, the whispered nonsense against the pink shell of his ear, and if James realizes the truth, it is just one more thing they will never talk about.

So he lies.

Lily smiles at him, reassured, and James just grins, long fingers trailing through the fiery tangles of his wife’s hair.

Harry hiccups into Sirius’s shoulder, sleepy and vulnerable, and Sirius promises himself that he will always tell Harry the truth.


End file.
